The days of designing and developing customer solutions in a bubble are over.  The new reality? Connectedness 24/7 and instant feedback.

The new Innovation Hub on sabre.com embraces this new customer-centric methodology. The Innovation Hub is a public showcase that displays some of the freshest concepts in travel technology while they’re still in the experimental phase. Registered  visitors can interact with these concepts and weigh in on their degree of efficacy. Like open-source developing, this type of open-feedback relationship encourages creativity and efficiency that benefits both Sabre and our customers.

By putting our ideas out for display while they are still in the idea phase, we can quickly know if we’re heading in the right direction or need to make adjustments.  That could be the difference between a Windows ME experience or the next Uber. By focusing on ideas with legs,  investments on solutions can be targeted to help transform the  travel industry and benefit travel providers and suppliers. It brings customers and industry influencers to the forefront of the conversation around the future of travel technology, which is exactly where they should be.

Eric Von Hippel is the professor of Technological Innovation in the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a professor in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. His research, which focuses on the nature and economics of distributed and open innovation, found that 60% of successful innovation comes from customers themselves. Hippel looked at 1,193 commercially successful innovations across nine industries and found  that user-created innovations help companies get around the “innovative slump periods,” those times when product planners at even the most progressive companies find themselves staring at a blank whiteboard.

Just like the companies Hippel studied, we’re ready for our customers to tell us what’s next. In short, we’ve burst our own development bubble … and we are just getting started. Take a look.